for social responsibility los angeles. >> in the mid to late 1940s, the u.s. government was trying to find a location in southern california to do nuclear reactor developmental testing and also rocket testing. >> the field lab was originally selected as a location to be away from populated areas because they knew they were going to be doing research that could be potentially dangerous. >> they did a marvelous study to determine what would be the least dangerous place to put a reactor testing facility, and the santa susana facility ranked very poorly. they were concerned any radioactivity that was released could get to populated areas nearby. they chose to site it anyway. >> santa susana ranked fifth or sixth because of meteorological conditions but selected anyway because of the driving time to ucla. >> at the time the santa suzenna field was established there was relatively low population density around it.